To think physically

[derangedmermaid]

Grabbing a 3/4 year olds face in both hands and repeatedly asking her if she wants ice cream, even though she has said three times that she doesn't want ice cream, is a bit fucking much?

Especially when child is sitting quietly and answering reasonably. Or am I being a snowflake?

Who did that?

A young woman with two, very nicely behaved, children and a guy.

She literally grabbed this child's face between her hands and kind of jarred it with the syllables of do. You. Want. Ice. Cream.

I was full on judgy glaring and my dd was sat open mouthed at it. The woman saw me and stopped, stood up and said "well she's having ice cream anyway" like it was some kind of hilarious game. The child just sat there with glassed over eyes like this isn't a one off. The woman then left them with the man to go order.

No, not mine, she would have had a sundae glass rammed down her throat!!

I know it's one of those five minute snapshots, DP didn't see it, and I know there's fuckall I could do but I'm still absolutely gobsmacked by it.

It's so hard when you see these short incidents. You don't know for sure if this is a parents bad day or their normal parenting style (even though you suspect the latter). And what can you do anyway? Call SS and describe a woman you saw two days ago in a shop?

I've had similar things once or twice eg a woman swearing at her child in Wilkes for no good reason. You feel bad but don't know what to do.

On the face of it it does seem rather aggressive. What did the guy do, anything?

The kids weren't behaving badly, they both sat nicely (possibly twins) and the bloke just looked straight through it iykwim. Like he was looking at her doing it but not. And when they both registered me she shot up and grabbed the other child's hand and said in my direction "well she's having it blah blah" and he just looked down at his hands.

He was quite young and didn't interact with the kids and DP said it looked like an awkward date or something. I'm certain he's not the kids parent

It just felt a bit much for that type of situation, tired parent or not.

It would be aggressive no matter the age. That poor child! The man doesn't come out of this too well either as he should have intervened.

If the cafe has CCTV I'd think about taking it further.

I wanted to say something to the lady behind the counter but the woman was there with the other child.

I mean really, what can I do? If I'd said something it would have probably been taken out on the kids, but my glare was enough to show that she definitely knew that she was doing wrong.

I doubt the cafe can/would do anything.

That poor little kid. It was the way she just fucking accepted it and stared at nothing.

These situations are always hard. It wasn't like she'd hit the dc or shoved them etc where imo you should step in and say something. Hopefully your look will makenher think twice about behaving like that in future. But who knows.